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Thursday, March 31, 2011

As I've mentioned here and there on my personal blog, I was asked to help with an event taking place in the Sim's community called "SILC"; if you're familiar at all with SIFF, the Sims International Film Festival, then this event should be fairly self explanatory to you. It's SIFF, except with writing rather than machinima!

However, for those who aren't familiar with SIFF: SILC is a several month long 'contest' of sorts; it's a time where you can write a story to present to the community, with challenges along the writing process related to the event or to your story. At the end, stories will be judged by our panel of mods (that includes mwah!), and from each genre/category several winners will be selected based on quality, contribution, and detail.

As I believe some of you out there may be interested, I decided to put a plug here with information about the event as well as links to the main site and the threads on each of the major sites we'll be posting challenges on for anyone that wishes to follow along.

For those curious, this is part of the reason I put off starting Season 6 til now (though I really did need a break!). It gives me a clean place to start off at from the premiere of SILC. (I'll be entering it under the Series category, which means I will not be judging that category, if you're wondering.)

Now that this is under-way, Season 6 will be starting very very soon. I unfortunately have had some things IRL preventing me from doing too much writing the last few days, but fear not, Desperate Sims will resume immenently, in all it's wondrous glory! (Ahem.)

In any case, I strongly encourage anyone that would like to participate to bookmark the Official Site as well as the Sims 3 Forum Threads to keep tabs on specific dates as things arise, and to make yourself an account on the SILC Site. I already started a thread for Desperate Sims but that's because I obviously already have a very clear idea what I'm going to be writing. ;) This is a VERY long ordeal (3 months I believe!) so there's no rush; this is mainly time to prepare yourself and get ready for the fun times ahead!

I'm sure it is going to keep me busy!! I poked Micky for the ending date (because I'm apparently I'm blind and didn't see it on the site) and the 'closing time' will be June 6th/10th.

Unfortunately, I'm really unsure on the details of how this is gonna work, since things like my series I HAVE to post periodically through the 2 months... So I'm going to do some poking and prodding about how exactly "submitting" works.

But, I'm really thrilled you guys are interested! I'll let you know when I get some more specifics. I highly suggest you cruise the site a bit, as the rules, some "starter" challenges, the different genres you can submit your story in, are listed up on the site.

Alright! I gave our lovely head honcho a good chunk of questions, and he used them to update the Rules/Guidlines for submissions:

http://officialsilc.webs.com/silcrulesandinformation.htm

So essentially Jen, if you're going to write, say, a short story, during the next two months you'll work on writing it, make "posters/trailers" to promote the upcoming story, then when the contest comes to a wrap everyone will submit their stories to be read/judged between June 6th-10th.

The difference with Series/Legacies (I'm submitting Season 6 as part of a Series, since it's more than 5 seasons long) is that you don't have the whole thing finished by the Due Date, you just have to have a big finale or what not prepared to submit as the "culmination" of the story.

Hmm. Not sure what the deal is with some accounts having a ridiculously long pending period... I'm gonna look into that and see if I can figure out the issue.

As for what you can submit, unfortunately you can't submit something that's already written. Basically, at the start you come up with an idea, submit the title/category to the mods, then take the next two months to write it and have it finished by June.

With your busy schedule, I'd personally suggest writing something shorter just to save yourself being stressed and crunched for time. Like I suggested to Amelia, you could do a spin-off from Drifter, like a short story of something that happened during Eliza's childhood, or Abigail's struggle, or any number of things. It's TOTALLY up to you.

But, truly, don't feel obligated to do it because it's something I'm involved in! I know how insane your RL is right now. I'll be bouncing all over the walls if you can come up with something you'd love to do though!! :D

Yeah I just saw Amelia's comment on her blog - Your story also has to already have a certain amount of parts. That's cool. And lovie I don't feel obligated at all. It was just going to be for fun anyway.

We are all connected somehow in the simming community and it would have been nice to enter into something like this but not to worry. I doubt I'll have a short story ready by those dates in June. But then you never know. I do have a couple of stories I started but never published them because I was too occupied with The Drifter.

Yeah :( :( It's a huge bummer because I'd love for you to submit the Drifter, as it'd be a great way to promote your stuff and I want all you guys to have that opportunity... I may try to convince Micky to drop the requirement to '3' since I know of a lot of segmented stories out there that aren't greater than 5 (honestly, getting past 5 is a heck of a freaking mountain to tackle), because I'm honestly not sure why the bar is set that high. Probably to ensure there's actual dedication to the Series, but I mean... you've been writing Drifter for almost a year. XD

Anyways, /endramble. Short stories, eehehehe! Heck, I'd be thrilled for you to finish one of those just for the sake of seeing them, not even specifically for SILC.

But, whatever your time allows, girly. :) You're very right, it's all for the fun. Besides, even if you don't have time to submit something, just making an account will let you cruise the forums and comment on other people's stuff.

And actually, I'm pretty sure that you can promote your story on the forums under the Series section, you just won't be able to submit it for the competition portion or whatever! So you could just do that, too!

... Okay. This comment is getting huge so I'm kicking myself off to bed, now. I swear, one of these days we all need to figure out a messaging service to IM with (PiB and I use the gmail/gchat thing) because it would save you all the horror of staring at walls o' text from me. ;)

I did create an account so I can track what's going even if I don't get around to writing a short just for this.

I do wish that the rules for continuing stories made more sense for any style. If you don't do chapters/seasons or a proper legacy, you are cut off from submitting your main story. That definitely isn't very fair.

IM is good. I have several IM different account if any one wants to have a chat at some point.

It makes sense for some things, since this is a competition at it's core and everyone in each category needs to be on the same playing field in the sense of they all have 2 months to write the story, yada yada...

Series/Legacies are exempt from that, but instead are pitted against each other--which may be the main reason that the Series Part-limit is so high; a series that has been going for 2 parts is very different from one that's been going for say, 7 parts.

Still, the main focus of this event is creating something *new*, not just showcasing what you've already got, which is why I myself am probably going to work on a short story; the only reason I'm hesitant to is that I can't judge any category I submit in, so I have to be careful not to write too much.

LOL but you can submit a legacy that's still creating gen 2 which can take far less time than a series that's on part 5.

But that doesn't matter to me since I write neither series nor legacies. Though I suspect that the World Adventure blog is near enough a legacy to pass...there don't seem to be that many that are 100% true to all the requirements.

I have two months to contemplate a new storyline, who gets to be the main character and create it. And write the entire thing so I know I don't go over the limits. :) Shouldn't be too hard if I think of a story I really do want to do. I think most of my shorts are written in 1 to 3 weeks once I start them.

I am getting WAY too into this. Gritty Bridgeport noir = too much fun. I really like how SILC is already helping people boost creativity and think outside the box. That's one of the reasons I don't mind that some Series can't be entered.

That being said, it would make sense for the qualifications for Legacies/Series to be along the same lines, but there's also a lot of difficulty with deciding what those should be, you know? I mean, look at Desperate Sims- if it were a Legacy, it'd barely be on its second generation (in-story, that is, since Jeb was already several generations in from what I understand). And yet, it's in its sixth season as a Series because of how long Kaleeko has her lifespans and time flow.

So I guess it all depends on how long of a lifespan you have, how short your seasons are, how often you update, and a variety of other factors. There's really probably no easy way to decide what's a level playing ground so setting it at 5 chapters at least ensures that there's been enough work put into it to have a concrete style defined by that point!

I has an update on the Series limitations: I talked to Micky about it, and he agreed to lower it down to 3 parts. Which means, if you're time will allow you to crank out Part 4 by June 10th, you'll be able to enter it under Series! :D :D

Answer: Actually, you MUST post Part 4 on your blog. You can post update notices on the SILC site or whatever, but the sites not big enough to host everyone's stories so everyone has to post theirs on an external places. So basically, just go ahead as you normally do! Just make sure you send in your "Entry Submission" letter thing BEFORE you start writing Part 4. If your account isn't working still, I can send it in for you.

Oh, and we finally settled on a Series having just *two* parts to qualify! So yay! You're in the great-zone, now!

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Summary:Trouble's on the rise when a rather strange family of gypsies touches down in Twinbrook, but with everything else going on in Margo's hectic life, she doesn't have time to notice... or does she? The battle for hearts begins as both Margo and Lilobot find themselves torn between the devil they know and the devil they don't--leading to choices that may very well define the rest of their lives.

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This Blog is a fictional story written using the Sims 3 (tm Electronic Arts); it is written by the:

--- Desperate Sims ---

This is a dramatic story series following the lives of the Kanes, a family within the Sims 3, for whom things never seem to go quite right.It is a work of fiction that contains some mature themes that some readers may find offensive; discretionary caution is advised. Thanks!